Tuesday, June 2, 2009

NAACP Launches Charter Amendment Campaign Against Water Works Plan

Why would we buy assets we already own for $475 million?

In May, City Manager Milton Dohoney endorsed a plan to transfer the assets of the Cincinnati Water Works to a new regional water authority. From COAST’s perspective, the plan has serious problems, including:

forcing ratepayers to buy water district assets at a price of $475 million – assets they already own! and

Giving the Water District the authority to raise property taxes and to take real property by eminent domain.

Read the full COAST analysis here and here. You may read for yourself the Executive Summary of the Advisory Committee report here and the entire report here.

Now, in addition to launching the petition drive to stop Council’s Trolley Folly, Christopher Smitherman and the Cincinnati Chapter of the NAACP have also launched a petition to stop the Water Works plan.

COAST presently is considering endorsing the Water Works petition and helping with the signature gathering effort. E-mail COAST Chairman Jason Gloyd at Jason.Gloyd@cbws.com with your thoughts on the NAACP Water Works petition.

1 comment:

Since the current GCWW covers much more population that what it services within city limits, you are not merely selling the assets back to the taxpayers, as you state.

Instead, you are selling it to a board that still receives the income from all consumers of the water system today, which means that "current owners" only make up a small portion of these "payers" that you are referring to.

To use your logic properly, people who don't currently own the water works, but rely upon it, as well as city tax payers, are paying to have its control transferred to a regional authority, and to give the city a return on its investment. Since the number of users far outpaces the consumers within the city limits, the amount of "paying for" that comes out of city residents' hands is tiny.

Additionally, the proposed agreement stipulates that the city limits maintain a discounted water rate, to reflect that their residents are the ones who bore the original cost of building the thing over the years, and who deserve some sort of compensation for partially divesting control of it to the communities that we currently only sell water into.

Your argument makes no sense at all when you look into the facts, but it sounds like good propaganda to feed the anti-government hoards to keep them angry.

I suppose that, still, "facts" and "COAST" cannot exist in the same paragraph at the same time.

Mission & Purpose

COAST exists to limit the rate of taxes and spending at the federal, state, and local level to within the rate of inflation and to stop the abuse of power by government officials.

COAST advances this cause by consistent and principled adherence to limited government and lower taxes in fighting legislation and ballot initiatives that increase taxes and spending beyond the rate of inflation, and by supporting candidates for public office who advance these principles.